Society's Child

Former FBI agent Fred Humphries calls McCabe firing 'fitting': 'Important for top officials to be held accountable'

Howard Altman
Tampa Bay Times
Sat, 17 Mar 2018 15:51 UTC

Fred Humphries woke up Saturday morning and for the first time ever raised a blue and white Federal Bureau of Investigation flag on the pole in his front yard.

"I was encouraged and hopeful," said Humphries, 53, in an exclusive interview with the Tampa Bay Times, reacting to the news that former FBI director Andrew McCabe had been fired.

A day earlier, both men left the FBI after 21-year careers.

Humphries retired, a short while after serving a 60-day unpaid suspension for previously speaking to the Times without permission.

McCabe, fired after the Justice Department rejected an appeal that would have let him retire this weekend, is accused in a yet-to-be-released internal report of failing to be forthcoming about a conversation he authorized between FBI officials and a journalist.

Toxic nothing-burger: Cambridge Analytica "scandal" is a political attack posing as journalism

Igor Ogorodnev
RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:58 UTC

Seeing Donald Trump's media and political critics, who for years feted "big data," suddenly pretend it's a crime, is hard to stomach. And the feigned outrage is being used as a weapon of establishment control over social media.

Before being repackaged by two leading liberal-leaning outlets to produce a media firestorm that has wiped tens of billions off Facebook's valuation and could usher in a new wave of investigations and regulation, the actual facts of Cambridge Analytica's data collection had been known since 2015. What has changed is the language: what the Guardian called "psychological profiling" and "behavioral microtargeting" before Donald Trump was elected, in the latest reports from the same newspaper becomes "psyops," the sinister-sounding "harvesting," the alarming "data breach," and most gloriously "Steve Bannon's psychological warfare mindf**k tool."

Behind the grand claims, the germ of the story remains - by tech standards - almost disappointingly quotidian. In 2014, the upstart data analysis company Cambridge Analytica developed a psychological quiz app that over 270,000 users of the world's biggest social network downloaded and completed. As well as passing their own data to the UK-headquartered firm, the test-takers agreed to share limited information about their friends - age, location and likes - as in line with Facebook's policy at the time, producing the much-cited but unverified figure of 50 million users that were profiled.

Israel needs to kick out 450 elderly people to make room for Jerusalem's new US embassy

RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:02 UTC

Israeli authorities would need to relocate some 450 USSR immigrants, many of whom are in their 80s, from a plot of land to facilitate the construction of a new US embassy. And there is no solution in sight.

The plot in Jerusalem's predominantly Jewish Arnona neighborhood is owned by the United States and currently accommodates an American consulate, which will soon be promoted to embassy status. This is scheduled to happen on May 14, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence, although red tape may force a postponement, according to local media.

While the consular compound, which opened in 2010, is among the most secure American diplomatic facilities in Israel, it's far too small to serve as the full-fledged fortified embassy that the US wants it to be. Construction work required to change this would involve the relocation of 450 residents of the decades-old Diplomat Hotel, which was purchased by the US in 2014 and leased out to house elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

According to the Israeli parliament's website, authorities have no plans on how to do this, with a heated debate taking place about the fate of those residents at a recent Immigration Committee meeting. "We cannot leave them in suspense, worry and fear of what their future will be and where they will be transferred," said Committee Chairman Avraham Neguise.

Comment: See also:

EU court finds men subjected to CIA-style '5 techniques' by British Army were not tortured

RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:48 UTC

European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

A European court has rejected a request to find that a group of 14 men detained during internment in Northern Ireland suffered torture. The prisoners were subjected to white noise, sleep and food deprivation as well as beatings.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected the Irish government petition to revise a 1978 judgement against the UK and find that the prisoners, known as the 'hooded men' were subjected to torture.

The men were exposed to methods known as the "five techniques" - hooding, white noise, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and food deprivation. The practice was applied over an unknown period of four to seven days for an unspecified number of hours at a time. Similar interrogation techniques have since been deployed by the CIA and outlined in a 2014 Senate Torture report.

Sweden will criminalize sex without first getting explicit consent

RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:43 UTC

Sex without first getting explicit consent is to be criminalized in Sweden. The new bill was sent to lawmakers Tuesday, despite some deeming the law unnecessary.

Sweden already has extensive sexual assault laws, but country's lawmakers want to further cement the need for consent in the hope that the new law will see more sexual assault cases being prosecuted. The government describes the bill as being "based on the obvious: sex must be voluntary."

"Sex should be voluntary. Everything else is abuse," Justice Minister Morgan Johansson tweeted.

"I think it's important to reach that clarity in legislation," Johansson later added, Omni reports. "I think the number of crimes solved will increase. Particularly through the combination of stronger and broader legislation together with increased support for victims."

Crisis of meaning in America: Youth suicide skyrocketed over 70% in the last decade

Ben Shapiro
The Daily Wire
Tue, 20 Mar 2018 15:28 UTC

According to the Centers for Disease Control, youth suicide is in the midst of a precipitous and frightening rise. Between 2006 and 2016, suicides by white children between ages 10 and 17 skyrocketed 70%; while black children are less likely than white children to kill themselves, their suicide rate also jumped 77%. And as The Blaze points out, CNN reported last year that "the suicide rate among girls between the ages of 15 and 19 rose to a 40-year high in 2015."

It's not just young people. According to Tom Simon, a CDC report author, "We know that overall in the US, we're seeing increases in suicide rates across all age groups." As of 2016, suicide levels were at 30-year highs.

So, what in hell is going on?

A few years back, the trendy explanation was economic volatility - the market crash of 2007-2008 had supposedly created a culture of despair, cured only by suicide. But the economy is booming, and has been growing steadily since 2009. There are those who blame the rise in drugs as well, particularly opioids - but according to a study from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, drinking, smoking and drug use may be at the lowest levels "seen in decades," as the Los Angeles Times reports.

Comment: Jordan Peterson discusses the need for meaning in his books and lectures and offers a message of hope to despairing youth who need it most. See:

Woman accused of killing mother with glass shards - Removes eyes and leaves them on top of cardboard box

Linda Trischitta
Sun-Sentinel
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 15:38 UTC

Camille Balla

A blood trail along a living room floor grew heavier in the kitchen and led to the garage of a Royal Palm Beach home. There, detectives say, was the body of Francisca Monteiro-Balla, 55, who had been slashed in her head, arms, chest and stomach.

Placed on top of a cardboard box: Monteiro-Balla's eyes, which had been removed from their sockets.

Detectives say Monteiro-Balla's daughter Camille Balla, 32, killed her using glass shards.

Deputies were called to the 100 block of Country Club Way around 1:40 a.m. Friday. A colleague of Camille Balla had called authorities after finding her covered in blood in front of the house.

California judge bars L.A. from enforcing gang injunctions that reduce crime

Gregg Re
Fox News
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 15:15 UTC

© Reuters
Los Angeles has been precluded from enforcing most of its '90s-era, contentious gang injunctions, a federal judge has ruled.

The city of Los Angeles has been barred from enforcing the vast majority of its gang injunctions, which applied restrictions on gang associations that authorities have long credited with reducing crime.

The ruling Thursday by U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union that the injunctions were likely to be unconstitutionally broad, and affect people who did not have adequate opportunity to challenge them in court.

The gang injunctions are civil court orders that have applied to nearly 9,000 people and 79 gang sets since 2000, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The orders can effectively prevent individuals from legally associating with people in gang-ridden neighborhoods or networks.

Michael Moore blasts corporate media for non-stop anti-Russia coverage

RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 15:18 UTC

Liberal firebrand and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore lashed out at corporate media for their non-stop coverage of alleged Russian malfeasance, distracting Americans from discussing high poverty rates and inequality.

"You turn on the TV and it's 'Russia, Russia, Russia!'" Moore said during a live-streamed town hall event attended by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. "And don't forget Stormy Daniels!" Sanders jokingly added, referencing the porn star who claims to have had an affair with Donald Trump before he ran for president.

The town hall, watched by an estimated 1.7 million people online, focused on confronting and combatting inequality in America. According to Moore, the media's obsession with Russia is a distraction used to avoid dialogue on issues such as child poverty and income inequality.

Fmr Abu Ghraib detainees describe the physical and mental trauma they continue to experience thanks to US torture methods

RT
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:12 UTC

© Agence France-Presse
This handout photo from SBS TV received 15 February 2006 allegedly shows a hooded and bound prisoner being attacked by a dog in Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib jail supposedly during interrogation by US soldiers in Baghdad in 2004

Former Abu Ghraib detainees say time has not fully healed the physical and mental pain they suffered at the infamous US prison. Iraqis spoke with RT on the 15th anniversary of the US-led invasion of their country.

"The time I spent in that prison felt like a lifetime. An hour of that pain, humiliation, and injustice stays with you forever," Anwer Al-Sudani, a former Abu Ghraib detainee, told RT.

Once used by Saddam Hussein to lock up political dissidents, Abu Ghraib prison was converted into a US Army detention facility shortly after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

In April 2004, photographs showing prisoners being subjected to torture, sexual humiliation, rape, and other forms of abuse at the hands of US soldiers were leaked to the press.

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Society's Child

Former FBI agent Fred Humphries calls McCabe firing 'fitting': 'Important for top officials to be held accountable'

Toxic nothing-burger: Cambridge Analytica "scandal" is a political attack posing as journalism

Israel needs to kick out 450 elderly people to make room for Jerusalem's new US embassy

EU court finds men subjected to CIA-style '5 techniques' by British Army were not tortured

Sweden will criminalize sex without first getting explicit consent

Crisis of meaning in America: Youth suicide skyrocketed over 70% in the last decade

Woman accused of killing mother with glass shards - Removes eyes and leaves them on top of cardboard box

California judge bars L.A. from enforcing gang injunctions that reduce crime

Michael Moore blasts corporate media for non-stop anti-Russia coverage

Fmr Abu Ghraib detainees describe the physical and mental trauma they continue to experience thanks to US torture methods

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